


Crystalline Anger

by apisa_b



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anger, Breeding, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, GLACIER, Kyber Crystals, Nightmares, ice mummies, manipulated feelings, mention of a background character's pregnancy, use of host bodies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:35:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26651509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apisa_b/pseuds/apisa_b
Summary: A secret that threatens the universe has been entombed in ice for centuries. As the ice begins to melt away, more secrets are unearthed, and Rey and Ben must confront the truth of their own pasts in order to protect the possibility of a shared future.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 15
Kudos: 16
Collections: Reylo Hidden Gems, To Rapture the Earth and the Seas: the 2020 Reylo Fanfiction Anthology





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A huge shout-out to the amazing [flypaper_brain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flypaper_brain/pseuds/flypaper_brain) for being my beta and cheerleader, and for helping to tie up loose ends and making sure nobody falls into plot holes.
> 
> Many thanks to the RFFA mods [Vivien](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vivien) and [Aionimica ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aionimica/pseuds/aionimica)for polishing the story in the editorial process, and for creating an amazing promotional moodboard for it!

Exhibit LS7, The Skywalker Archives  
dated app. 30 years before the founding of the Republic

My dearest boy,

I can see you scoffing at that endearment, Anakin, but that is what you are, even though we’ve had our differences and I don’t agree with many of your decisions. And yes, even though you are a grown man with your own child on the way, in my eyes you are still a boy – and always will be.

Padme arrived safely. I have to admit that a beautiful and very pregnant woman showing up on my doorstep unannounced, claiming that she was your wife, really took me aback at first. After years of not wanting any contact with me, you sent your wife to me to keep her safe, and it warmed my heart. I wholeheartedly agree with your choice. Padme has a sharp mind, and I’m sure that it was she who finally helped you see through Sheev’s lies.

That you believed him in the first place was my fault. I know that. By telling you an edited version of the truth, I was giving him the tools to lure you in. But believe me, Sheev elevated you to your position of power because of your bloodline; because of your connection to me. I don’t want to diminish your own accomplishments, for you are a born leader and fearless in battle, but what Sheev ultimately wants is your body. His current human hull is fading fast, ravaged and torn apart by having to host an entity from another world. You come from the same world – half of you does, at least –so he is quite convinced that your body should be able to serve him longer than any other.

I know I never really told you about my past. I grew up far from here, in another world, in a society where taking over younger bodies when your own body was dying was considered normal; it was even expected when you were part of the leading caste. I was taught to always give my best so I would be among those deemed worthy of being grafted – and yet, it always felt wrong to me. What gives us the right to separate a soul from the body it was born in, and give that body to another soul? It’s a form of slavery, nothing more and nothing less, and as such it is deeply immoral and should be prohibited.

I know I was put under Sheev’s tutelage so he could cure me of my liberal thoughts, and maybe it was hoped that I could temper his more violent tendencies. Needless to say, that didn’t work. Sheev’s blatant hunger for power and his disregard for the lives of other individuals were soon to be noted by the High Council, and his right to a new host body was revoked. His time was running out, as his host was not the youngest anymore.

And I? Well, the more I had to work with Sheev, the more convinced I was that prolonging someone’s life span as it was customary, was plain wrong. The more host bodies someone lived through, the less they tended to care for the rights and well-being of other individuals; and the more self-serving their own agendas became.

That I ended up coming to this world with Sheev was nothing but an accident. As the High Council refused to grant him another host body, he became obsessed with finding another solution. He immersed himself in obscure texts, one of which mentioned the possibility of using the kyber amulets the destined graftees were permitted to carry to open a portal to a world with inhabitants who could be used as hosts. He needed the kyber of my amulet as an additional focal point to open the portal, so he knocked me unconscious to get his hands on it. I regained consciousness just in time to see him opening the portal, and tried to close it by grabbing my amulet. The portal collapsed, but not without sucking Sheev and myself onto the other side. Once here, Sheev wasted no time and managed to convince Palpatine, the son of the leader of one of the local tribes, to give him access to his body – and the rest is history. “Palpatine“ united all of the local tribes under his leadership and ruled his empire with an iron fist, crushing anyone who dared to disagree with him.

I tried my best to support the resistance against his rule, and I met and fell in love with your father during that time. After I lost him to the cause, I tried to protect you from all of this, and never told you the whole truth. I’m sorry for that, and hope that it is not too late now.

Anakin, never forget that he needs your acquiescence to take over your body. Don’t let him lure you into giving in. I know just how persuasive he can be, but it’s all lies.

Be safe!

I can barely wait to hold you in my arms again.

Your loving mother, 

Shmi

~~~~~~~~

_How can someone like Emperor Palpatine be adequately described? During a period that spanned almost three decades, he changed the course of the continent of Galactica’s history with a style so unique that no words seem to do him justice. And even today, a millennium after his death, the effects of his reign can still be felt._

_Born to nomadic parents in Naboo, Palpatine was certainly an intelligent and resourceful man, but he did not receive a formal education – even for pre-republic standards – apart from customary military training._

_Nevertheless, in his late twenties he set out to prove himself a leading political philosopher, developed the Philosophy of the Sith in his famous book ‘The Rule of Two’, in which he outlines a path of political, economic and social revolution with the aim to set oppressed people free._

_In reality, it was little more than a series of fatuous diatribes, and it was bitterly ironic that a text whose professed objective is to break shackles was used to subjugate the entire population inhabiting his empire. The result of the Philosophy of the Sith, underlined with absolute intolerance of dissent or alternative voices, was the hollowing out of society, with all vestiges of civil society and political participation eradicated. He ruled from the top of an ultra-hierarchical pyramid by inflicting draconian laws under the guise of upholding security. Legal penalties included collective punishment, as well as death or life-long sentences for anyone who was suspected of opposing him._

_Soon Emperor Palpatine started to expand his empire beyond the boundaries of his original domain of Naboo, and successfully incorporated the whole continent of Galactica into his empire._

_As a mysterious illness ravaged the Emperor’s body, he started to lean more and more on Lord Vader, a young man of obscure origins, and even declared him as his successor, favoring him over the biological children he had with his many mistresses._

_Palpatine’s reign ended abruptly with the onset of the Imperial Glacial Epoch. A strange weather phenomenon, which caused the Hoth Glacier to both form and reach its maximum extension in the span of only one year, is believed to have taken the lives of Emperor Palpatine as well as Lord Vader, and was thus indirectly responsible for the rise of the Republic, under its first chancellor Padme Amidala._

Excerpt from “The Rise of the Republic: A Story of Courage, Community and War”  
by Suralinda Javos

~~~~~~~~

“You did _what_?”

Snoke, the current Supreme Leader of the Sith, halted mid stride, turned jerkily and glared menacingly at his conversation partner.

“We lost the child,” Brendol Hux answered, his voice wavering as Snoke stepped into his personal space and stared down at him with his icy blue eyes. He could barely suppress a disgusted shudder, as there was no way he could avert his eyes from Snoke’s deformed face. But alienating Snoke by showing his disgust while bearing bad news was a surefire recipe for disaster, and he took care to keep a blank face.

“The second coming of Sheev is nigh, and you managed to lose his ideal host-body? The focal point of centuries’ worth of intersecting blood lines to create a body strong enough to hold Him?”

“Why is she so special? Surely there are other suitable children in the program?”

“Ah, you are thinking of your own offspring, aren’t you, Brendol?” Snoke drawled. “I’m afraid I have to tell you that your boy is entirely too weak. He wouldn’t be able to host Sheev even for an hour.” Snoke’s lips curled to match the derision of his words, making the hollowed-out left part of his face even more noticeable. After a moment he stepped back.

“What happened?” he finally asked the red haired tired looking man, his voice almost soft.

“Triclops and Kendalina wanted to spend some quality time with their daughter before she begins her education on Exegol, so they asked to be allowed to make a side-trip,” Hux explained, carefully weighing his words.

“They were shadowed, I presume?”

“Of course they were, but Ochi lost sight of them in the Outer Rim area, when the participants of an illegal car race separated them. He called in reinforcements immediately, but it took them a whole week to find Triclops and Kendalina again, a thousand miles away from where Ochi had last seen them. They’d hidden the child by then, Sheev knows where.”

“It shouldn’t be too hard to get it out of them,” Snoke said. “If you get my drift.”

Hux briefly closed his eyes, and ran a finger under the collar of his shirt.

“It wouldn’t, if they still were alive,” he whispered, eyes cast down to the floor. “As soon as they noticed our people around, they drove their car into a bridge foundation. They didn’t make it.”

Hux had no idea what he expected, but Snoke not even moving a muscle– apart from the one ticking in his cheek –and not saying a single thing for several minutes was not it.

“You are going to find her. I don’t care how you do it, but you are _going_ to find her,” he finally hissed, and Hux only ducked his head and fled the room as quickly as possible.

~~~~~~~~ 

_Murder investigation to be launched after hiker’s gruesome discovery of a body on Hoth glacier_

[Naboo Telegraph, September 2nd 1048]

_“We don’t miss anybody!” – Backwater police chief’s shocking reaction to inquiries regarding Ice Man’s identity._

[Jakku Daily Mail, September 2nd 1048]

_Coroner claims Ice Man’s death must have occurred several hundred years ago._

[Coruscant Times, September 8th, 1048]

_The Ice Man of Hoth, a human body mummified approximately 1000 years ago, was discovered by the young hiker Rey Plutt on the North reaching tongue of the Hoth glacier near the Valorum Wall on September 1_ _st_ _1048\. The body is that of a man aged 25 to 30 who had been about 6 feet tall and had weighed about 160 pounds. It is generally thought that he must have fallen victim to exposure, as no wounds or diseases could be determined so far._

_The various clothes and items found with or near him are remarkable, as they seem to indicate he must have been of noble birth._

[Popular Science, Temmin Wexley ]

_Ice Man of Hoth transferred to the museum of Coruscant, hiker who discovered ancient corpse receives small reward._

[Naboo Telegraph, November 1st 1048]

_Was the Ice Man of Hoth Lord Vader, Emperor Palpatine’s infamous right hand?_

[Jakku Daily Mail, January 10th 1049]

~~~~~~~~

Report on the Hoth Glacier, 1036 AP  
Surveyor: Luke Skywalker

_For the reported year the weather pattern continued to show the glacier-adverse conditions notable from the previous years. After a far too warm and unusually dry winter, the lowest-lying glacier tongues were already uncovered from their protective snow layer at the beginning of May. In combination with the abnormally long warm weather periods in July and August, this led to increased ice melting, which would have been even more significant if not for a short cold weather period in July with snowfall in the higher regions of Hoth that interrupted the melting period._

_The Hoth glacier retreated eight meters on its left, moraine-free part, which is an increase of 5% in relation to the average of the last 20 years. On its right, rubble-covered end the decrease of the ice tongue was 13.1 meters. On the whole this relates to a loss of 9.22 billion m 3 ice in the span of a year. _

~~~~~~~~

Sunset was Rey’s favorite part of every day. The back of Luke’s old hut faced west, and every evening she would sit outside on an admittedly not very comfortable, rickety old chair to watch the last bits of pink and orange cling to the mountain walls; she had to admit that the hut and its location were part of what had convinced her to follow in Luke’s footsteps. No matter what hardships she faced during her day, the glowing evening sky always made her feel better. Today was her favorite kind of sunset; the colors were so bright against the dark rocky shapes that it almost hurt to fully look at them. She left the journal in which she scribbled the measurements she’d taken that day open on her lap while she leaned back to watch the sky gradually fade into an inky blue. Without any conscious effort her eyes settled on the point where the glacier met the Valorum wall: the point that‘s been calling to her for weeks now – even in her dreams. Tomorrow she would finally start taking measurements there. She’d been evading the call, and had deliberately postponed the work there towards the end of this year’s survey because the force of the pull had her stomach in knots. It didn’t feel natural.

The creaking of one of the timber floorboards of the stairs snapped her out of her reverie.

“What the–” Rey hissed as she jumped up, causing the chair to fall to the side.

She was alone up here, and none of the animals that lived nearby and sometimes flitted around were heavy enough to cause her floorboards to creak. She reached behind her to grab the fallen chair, and raised it over her head as she tiptoed around the corner, fully ready to use it in defense against whomever– or whatever –was sniffing around the hut.

Although she hadn’t actually expected to see an animal, the sight of a tall and massive man clad completely in black from his hiking boots to the beanie covering his head poking around the place under the stack of wood where Luke used to keep the keys threw her for a loop. That he was searching that exact spot indicated that he’d been here before, knew Luke and his habits. That didn’t mean that she could trust him, though.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Rey snarled at him, and he whirled around, wincing in pain as he knocked his hip against the stack of wood in the process. When he saw her standing there challenging him with a chair raised above her head, his lips curled into an amused smirk. He’d been frowning before, probably annoyed that the keys were not where he expected them to be, but now his eyebrows rose as his eyes travelled over her form.

“Well, I could ask you the same,” he finally responded in a deep voice, barely hiding his amusement. He clearly didn’t see her as a threat, but she would not be underestimated. Rey was tall for a woman, but slender; that slenderness belied the fact that she was strong, used to a life-time of physical work. She had muscles, and she knew how to use them. 

“Excuse me? I live here!” she snarled and gave him the full weight of her glare.

All her life Rey had tried to blend in, tried to be friendly, and had even managed to be more or less obedient to her foster father and employer (more like slave driver); but since she’d come to Hoth she’d vowed to herself that the days where she’d let anybody walk over her were over. Something up here, maybe the feral beauty of the ragged mountains and the glittering glacier, resonated with the steel within her, and she’d stopped smiling at all times and being accommodating to everybody. Her newfound bite had made it harder to find friends, but even so, the dislike she instantly felt for this stranger surprised even her.

“See, that can’t be right,” he drawled. “I know the owner of this place, and it isn’t you.”

“I’m sorry to inform you that the former owner has died. I live here now.” The chair started to get heavy, and she slowly lowered it, keeping its legs facing the stranger.

“Clearly unsanctioned,” he replied after a moment. For a moment he’d looked shaken, but that could have been a trick of the light.

“You’ve no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve taken over surveying the glacier. With this comes the necessity of using this space to live here.”

Her words seemed to surprise him.

“They let _you_ take over? You?” His eyes scrutinized her.

“What’s that supposed to mean? Why not me? You don’t even know me,” Rey snapped, and the man put up his hands in a placating gesture.

“It’s just that you’re not one of them. Not a member of that family. And it’s always been a Skywalker working up here.”

“Well, they didn’t have much choice. No family members were left to take over. So here I am. And now that it’s settled that I have a right to be here, it’s still not clear to me why _you_ are.”

“Well, you are wrong on one account. There’s still one left,” the man replied haltingly.

“What? You’re talking in riddles.”

“One family member. One family member Luke had already started to train so he’d know what needed to be done up here.”

“Don’t tell me you’re talking about the elusive nephew who didn’t even bother to show up to his own uncle’s funeral. The one who hasn’t spoken a word to his mum or dad for nearly a decade?” Rey narrowed her eyes. She’d seen pictures of Luke’s nephew, ranging from baby pics to shots taken up here while working on the glacier; they showed a dark haired young man with a long face, prominent nose, plush lips (that never smiled in any of the pictures), and ears that stuck out in an unfortunate but endearing manner. Taking into account the decade that had passed since, the man before her could very well be Luke’s nephew.

“You’re Leia’s son.”

Although it was more a statement than a question, he gave her an answering nod.

“Yes, I’m Ben Solo,” he said, and held out his hand in greeting.

Rey decided not to take his hand, but she finally put the chair down, feeling a bit ridiculous holding it as if he were an animal she had to ward off. That didn’t mean he had her convinced of his identity, or his trustworthiness.

“Uh-huh. And you can prove that how?”

With a rueful grin, he pulled his hand back. “Unfortunately I can’t. I didn’t bring any ID up here. Didn’t think I’d need it.”

“Anyone we could call to verify that?”

He pulled out his mobile, gave it a casual glance, and shrugged. “No signal, sorry.”

“Well, lucky for you I have a radio, and am scheduled to be getting in touch with Leia anyway. Care to say hello to mommy?” Rey had to suppress her smirk at the almost panicked look that crossed his face at her words.

She knew that if he was indeed Leia’s son, he hadn’t spoken to his mother in years, probably since before he’d left Luke. Rey could very well imagine the discomfort he must’ve felt at her suggestion.

His discomfort was exactly what she was aiming for now. The mere thought of being part of a family, of having parents and an uncle, and then deliberately shunning said family ignited rage in her. Rey had only vague memories of her parents: she remembered that her father had smelled divine, that her mother had light hair and a lovely voice (she’d said she would come back for her in that lovely voice – why hadn’t she?); and she remembered their order to always keep her arms covered, and had followed it up to this day. She remembered flashes of a car drive, and then brutal hands holding her in place while she cried and watched her parents drive away, never to see them again. She would have given anything to have had her parents in her life the way he had, and she felt offended at a visceral level by the way he’d thrown the connection to his family to the wind. The only response she could summon in reply to his jerky nod was a slight curl of her lips.

“If Leia doesn’t confirm your identity, then you’re out on your own,” Rey told him and indicated for him to step aside so she could walk by.

“But … I wouldn’t be able to get down into the valley in the dark,” Ben spluttered.

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take,” Rey shot back. “Besides, you should have brought supplies to build a bivouac if you wanted to sleep up here.”

“Well, I thought I could sleep in Luke’s hut, so there was no need to.”

“Shouldn’t you have cleared that with your mum first? Oh, I forgot – you don’t speak to her,” Rey snarled, gesturing for him to proceed into the hut in front of her. She wanted to keep him in sight.

As she watched him pick up his back bag and enter the hut, Rey wondered what exactly it was about him that had her reacting so strongly. The hut had two rooms, and she’d let hikers stay the night on occasion if the weather conditions had prevented them from proceeding safely, but with him she was determined to throw him out; she wondered why she hoped he was not who he claimed to be. The chances of that were pretty slim though, Rey thought as she watched him navigate the hut. He moved towards the cupboard where the radio was kept without being prompted, and turned and looked towards her expectantly. He happened to be standing next to a picture of Luke and a young Ben Solo (scowling in the same way the supposedly older version had done earlier), and Rey could clearly see the resemblance. His formerly lanky frame had filled out in a very appealing way, and she recognized the pattern of moles that dotted his face.She had to admit his eyes really resembled his mother’s. She didn’t need Leia’s confirmation at all, but she still wanted to make him suffer – and also let Leia know that her son was here, whatever his reasons for coming might be.

“Go ahead. I’m guessing you already know where the radio is and how to use it,” she prompted him.

“You really are going to have me radio my mom? You know I haven’t talked to her for ages. It’s hardly an appropriate means of communication for reconnecting.”

“At least you’ll be communicating. That in itself would be progress.”

Rey wasn’t sure whether the sound he made in reply was supposed to be a huff, or just groan he let out as he placed his back bag on the ground. He looked at her with pleading eyes, but Rey’s rigid stance and crossed arms seemed to convince him that he’d better get on with the call.

And he did. Without hesitation he opened the doors of the cupboard where the ham radio device was stored, and switched on the power source.

“What’s Leia’s call sign? Still GE1SO?” he asked, looking back at her over his shoulder.

Rey confirmed with a tense nod, and he turned back to the radio. He visibly steeled himself before taking up the hand piece and looking straight at her.

“GE1SO, this is Starfighter coming in from the Cold Base.”

Static noise filled the silence between them, before Leia’s radio-distorted voice was heard.

“Starfighter, say again.”

“GE1SO, this is Starfighter coming in from the Cold Base,” he repeated.

“Ben? Is that really you?” Even over the airwaves the softening of Leia’s voice was noticeable.

“GE1SO, this is what someone standing next to me wants to hear from you. Can you confirm?”

“Affirmative.”

“Starfighter out.”

Rey sprinted towards Ben, slapped his hand away before he could turn off the radio, and hissed at him. “You monster. How could you end the call like that?”

“What? You got what you wanted. Confirmation that I’m Ben Solo.”

“You’re unbelievable!” He didn’t wither under her glare, something she wasn’t used to anymore. “Fine,” she finally huffed. “You can have Luke’s room.”

“GE1SO, this is PW2QT,” Rey pushed the speak button as she watched the man climb the steep stairs. ”I’m sorry I had to spring this on you like this. He couldn’t prove that he was who he claimed to be–”


	2. Chapter 2

Exhibit LP11, The Skywalker Archives   
Dated app. 25 BFR 

Dear Anakin,

Lucas was out in the fields with your step brother for the first time today. Even now it is clear that he is not cut out to be a farmer, but he is interested in the tools and asked Owen many questions.

Leah suffered through another afternoon of needlework with Breha.

I am so thankful that Breha and Bail live nearby; Bail’s insights are always welcome, and Breha just adores our little girl. Despite the fact that Leah doesn’t like all the womanly tasks Breha is teaching her, she just loves to sit with her, to listen to her stories.

I’m blessed that so many people are helping me raise our children, and that they are loved by so many. I couldn’t do it on my own. Not with everything else going on.

Oh how I miss you, my love. Most of all when the children are in bed and I am alone with my thoughts, alone in my bed - the bed that should have been ours. I avoid spending time in that bed, instead I spend hours upon hours at the desk, writing down whatever tale Shmi tells me about her past, so our children will know about their heritage. I’m writing and reading until I fall asleep sitting here tonight.

Today Shmi remembered something that had eluded her until now. She fears that this detail may have cost you your life, and she’s beating herself up for not recalling it sooner. She remembered that someone else had been in Sheev’s study when he opened up the portal – meaning that he probably used three, and not just two, amulets to stabilize it. But you, you only had two pieces of kyber. Was this the reason why your plan failed? Was this the reason why the portal couldn’t manifest and caused the strange weather-phenomenon that took you from me instead?

I want to be mad at Shmi for not remembering, but how can I? What she experienced that day must have caused trauma for her, and it is a wonder she remembers as much as she does.

Every day without you is a struggle, my love, but I will pour everything I have to give into making our vision of the future come true.

As always,   
Padme

~~~~~~~~

Ben closed the door and let the silence sink in as he stood smack in the middle of Luke’s old bedroom.

Silence.

He couldn’t remember feeling so calm and centered since…well, ever. As long as he could remember there’d always been a voice from within egging him on, amplifying his feelings, stoking the fire of the legendary Skywalker temper that seemed to burn hotter within him than it had in previous generations.

But now? There was nothing. It was almost disconcerting.

Ben – it’s funny how easy he was able to transition to his given name, how natural using that name felt here where he’d spent part of his childhood – thought hard about when he first noticed the silence. Not while he was huffing and puffing up the mountain, woefully unsuited to the strenuous activity after having painstakingly avoided everything remotely related to hiking and outdoor sports for nearly a decade; weights had been his best friends, but fresh air certainly hadn’t. That voice had been the reason he’d made it up here, and not thrown in the towel and turned back halfway up.

The longer he tried to pinpoint the moment calmness had settled over him, the more he was sure it had been when the woman confronted him with a chair raised over her head. Instead of lashing out, which would be his usual response in this situation, he had only been amused – something he hadn’t been for a very long time. Her telling him – or rather snarling at him – that she had taken over Luke’s duties as the keeper of the glacier’s secret (well, she’d only admitted to taking over surveying the glacier, but he guessed she’d been made privy to its secret as well) made him feel a pang in the area where, according to rumors, his heart beat. Once upon a time he was supposed to have become the keeper of those secrets, and now this… this slip of a girl had taken his place.

Ben waited with bated breath for his anger to rise – but nothing happened. Which was weird.

Why didn’t it anger him that his legacy had been passed on to someone else? Granted, he’d long ago thrown away his claim to said legacy, but part of him had always hoped someone (his mum; he’d hoped for his mum) would seek him out and explain everything that had been hinted at, but never fully spelled out. With the Skywalkers everything had always been shrouded in layers upon layers of secrets, bits and pieces of information given out on a ‘need-to-know’ basis; it was something that went completely against his inquiring mind, and was probably the root of all the misunderstandings he had with his family.

Ben looked around, and took in the room. The desk under the window was empty, not littered with books and papers as he remembered it. In the drawers underneath were spare notebooks, and the books on the shelf were recent novels, not the old, dusty tomes he’d never been allowed to touch in his youth. He doubted he’d find the knowledge he sought in there. He would have to ask the girl and his mother about what they knew.

The girl.

Ben’s lips quirked up when thinking of her. She was something else, wild and untamed, completely unlike the women he’d encountered with the Sith; they had been subdued and resigned to fulfill whatever path the Supreme Leader had chosen for them, whatever fire they might once have possessed long sniffed out. The girl, on the other hand, had fire in spades; it had shown in the way she challenged him, first with the chair as if she was the tamer and he a wild beast in need of being subdued, and later with the angry words she spat towards him in defense of her territory. The rays of the setting sun had caught in the wisps of hair escaping her simple but severe looking up-do, and created a halo around her head that gave the illusion of sparks flying off her. Only the sweet freckles on her nose and cheeks softened her appearance somewhat.

He wondered if she was as wild and untamed between the sheets, or if she would be soft and moldable.

Where had that thought come from? Ben blinked and shook his head. He had never been overly interested in the carnal aspects of interpersonal relationships. He himself was the expert on achieving the release he needed, and so far he remained unconvinced that sex with another person was worth the hassle of negotiating a relationship.

Somehow, Ben knew that with her it would be different.

In all probability it would be  _ her _ not wanting to walk through the minefield of his emotions, if he read her right. In a way, he could now understand the frustration his family must have felt around him, when every action of theirs was met with anger. How fitting that the moment he was feeling calm for once, someone reacted with seemingly unwarranted anger towards him.

~~~~~~~~

Talk with Dameron [Transcript] March 15 th 1049

POE DAMERON: On September 1 st 1048 a young hiker descended from the Crait massif and crossed the Hoth glacier, despite the warnings regarding new crevasses, when she discovered something brown lying on the glittering, stark white surface. Now, why did you choose that dangerous route down into the valley, and what exactly was the first thing that went through your mind when you approached what later turned out to be the famous Ice-Man of Hoth, Miss Plutt?

REY PLUTT: I hadn’t planned on descending on that route. But… I had to round a crevasse and doing so brought me halfway to the Valorum wall, so I decided to switch trails, as I was already halfway there. And regarding the Ice-Man, at first I thought it must have been an animal that got stuck in a small crevasse or something. The nearer I got, the clearer it became that it was something else entirely, but only when I nearly touched it did I realize I was looking at a corpse.

POE DAMERON: What did you do then?

REY PLUTT: I tried to memorize enough orientation points so I could describe the location to the relevant authorities, and made a couple of pictures to help me in that endeavor. On my way down I met the glacial surveyor, Mr. Skywalker, and he used his radio to alert the nearest police station.

POE DAMERON: Surely you must have been shocked. One doesn’t get to see a corpse every day, after all.

REY PLUTT [laughs]: You have never lived in Jakku, have you Mr. Dameron?

POE DAMERON: No, I can’t say I have.

REY PLUTT: One does get quite used to the sight of corpses starved or shot to death there. So no, I hadn’t been shocked. Besides, the corpse clearly hadn’t died recently – something the authorities were quick to reassure me of.

POE DAMERON: But the supposed age of the Ice-Man surprised you in the end?

REY PLUTT: Well, yes. I’d had no idea ice could preserve a body that well. I’ve heard about the mummies in the pyramids of Tatooine or the swamps of Dagobah, but hadn’t heard about ice mummies before.

POE DAMERON: What do you think about the rumors stemming from the estimate of its death predating the Republic?

REY PLUTT: You’re referring to the theories that he could be either Palpatine or Vader? Well, I’m no historian, but to me it seems pretty unlikely. I mean, I know the myth that they both supposedly died in the area that is now covered by the Hoth glacier, but I still think the idea that the Ice Man could be either one of them is rather far-fetched. 

POE DAMERON: The glacial surveyor, Mr. Skywalker, who claims his family are descendants of Vader, is very vocal in declaring his opposition to this theory. Some say he might be trying to hide something.

REY PLUTT: Excuse my bluntness, but that’s bullshit. What do you think he has to hide?

POE DAMERON: Maybe additional findings that could cast a spotlight on the Hoth glacier he so desperately wants to protect and conserve.

REY PLUTT: All he had been trying to do for the last two decades was get the public’s attention! The glacier is thawing and the Hoth ecosystem is becoming more and more destabilized. All the attention the discovery of the mummy brought to the area is helping to get the funding for projects to examine the ecosystem more in depth.

POE DAMERON: Last question: are you content with the reward you were granted from the museum of Coruscant?

REY PLUTT: It was a lovely surprise. I hadn’t counted on getting something in exchange for reporting my findings.

~~~~~~~~

Rey sighed in frustration and squinted, annoyed at the nearly indecipherable text in front of her, and rubbed her neck. She couldn’t stop thinking about what Leia had told her about Ben when Rey had asked about where their son was after she noticed him in so many pictures, not only at Luke’s mountain retreat, but also at Han and Leia’s house. Luke had always refused to talk about his nephew.

‘After Ben’s last fight with Luke, he vanished seemingly without a trace. At first we thought he only needed to cool down, and would return home in his own time, but he never did. By the time we had given up hope and reported him missing, all leads were stone-cold,’ Leia told her. ‘After a year, the Supreme Leader of the Sith let us know that we should stop looking; that Ben was with him.’ Rey had been quite baffled, because why would Snoke tell them this?

‘To boast,’ Leia explained to her. ‘They’d always tried to get their hands on one of us. They tried to get to Luke, and even to me when we were young, as well as many of our ancestors. To understand why, go and read the family annals Luke kept in his room. Read the entries of Gallius.’

Which was what Rey was trying to do again right now. If only Gallius’ handwriting was a bit more readable. From what Rey had been able to decipher so far, more than 300 years ago Gallius had let himself be lured in by the promises of the Sith, but had come to his senses in the end and eventually returned to the Skywalker family fold. During his time with the Sith he had learned a lot about the inner workings of their cult - and about the sinister plans they had for the future. 

Rey could not comprehend how Ben could have willingly joined the Sith. He was the last known member of the Skywalker family; after Leia’s death he’d be the world’s only hope of making sure Sheev would not be able to return. Without a Skywalker watching over the glacier and being the first one to find and secure whatever artefact the glacier was spitting out, who could even try to prevent Sheev from returning and wreaking havoc on society? And yet, Ben had left and joined forces with the enemy. He'd probably fraternized with the enemy in every possible way; there were rumors about the depravities in which the the Sith’s inner circle indulged, and instantly, unbidden thoughts about how Ben might look underneath all the layers of clothing he’d been wearing earlier rose to the surface, thoughts about a sweaty, naked, muscular body. She even imagined hearing his deep voice murmuring filthy encouragements.

Unwanted heat surged through Rey’s body. Angry at her own traitorous thoughts, she pushed the chair back and stood up. She really had been alone and without physical contact with any other human being for far too long, if she started to have lewd thoughts about someone she despised. And she did despise him, despite only having met him not even two hours ago. She despised him for throwing away everything he’d been handed in life, for abandoning his family, for choosing to be with the Sith, and last but not least for looking so damn good. If she has to hate him, why couldn’t he be physically repulsive?

To put an end to her ever-circling thoughts, Rey decided to go downstairs, where she’d heard him puttering around in the kitchen for some time now, and confront him. As soon as she opened the door to her room, a delicious smell assaulted her nose, and her stomach instantly reacted with a growl. Rey often forgot to eat while working, used to ignoring hunger pangs by the years of having a foster father control her food intake as a form of punishment.

When her eyes fell on the table that was laid out for two, she stopped in her tracks halfway down the stairs.

“What the–“

As if he had been waiting for her, Ben appeared in the door leading to the kitchen. He had divested himself of some layers while she’d been upstairs, and Rey couldn’t help but notice how his black sweater hugged his muscles. Without the beanie, she also noticed that he wore his hair longer than he used to as a youth, successfully hiding his ears.

“Perfect timing,” he said cheerfully. “The spaetzle are nearly ready to be taken out of the oven.”

“You cooked.”

“Uhm, yes?” Ben answered warily, obviously noticing the venom in Rey’s voice.

“And used my provisions without asking.” Ben stopped her by lifting his hand.

“Actually, no. I used the ones I brought with me. I thought the place to be uninhabited, and expected to find some expired canned food at best, since that was all Luke seemed to eat.”

Rey’s stomach growled again, and Ben’s lips curled up slightly.

“Will you eat with me? As a peace offering?”

“I hadn’t realized we were at war,” Rey answered, although she had to concede that her actions had been rather aggressive so far. Not that he didn’t deserve it.

“As a thank you, then. For letting me stay despite not trusting me.” He looked up to where she stood on the stairs, almost beseechingly, and held out a hand. “Please.”

Without any conscious thought, Rey nodded and slowly descended the remaining stairs, the delicious smell overriding any reservations she might have had against accepting anything from him.

“Sit down. I’ll be out in a minute,” Ben called back over his shoulder and retreated into the kitchen.

“Being ordered around in my own home,” Rey muttered under her breath as she sat down, but secretly she was pleased. She could count the occasions someone had made her a home-cooked meal on the fingers of one hand. If whatever he’d cooked tasted as good as it smelled, she would have a hard time staying pissed at him. A good meal really was the fastest way to soften her up.

Ben placed a plate full of some sort of mini dumplings covered in grated cheese before her, and Rey had to suppress a groan.

“Be careful, it’s hot,” he warned her, and she had to restrain herself from not digging in immediately.

“What is this, torture?” she playfully asked him. “Placing this in front of me, and then keeping me from eating?”

He looked at her in surprise before he sat down opposite her.

“I don’t want you to get burned and have another reason to hate me to add to your list, Angry Girl,” he carefully said while leaning back in his chair.

“Angry Girl?”

“You haven’t told me your name, and you sure appear to be angry. So, yeah, Angry Girl.”

“Yeah, well, that’s fair,” she said slowly. “My name’s Rey.”

She saw Ben cock his head slightly, furrowing his brow while he obviously tried to place where he’d heard her name before. Rey isn’t exactly a common name for a woman, so if he followed the media coverage about the discovery of the Ice-Man (and as a Sith, he surely had; after all Hoth was the area where Palpatine had died). She could almost see him connecting the dots in his mind as he studied her.

“Wait, you're the hiker who found–“

“Yeah.” 

“Was this how you met Luke? Or had you already been working with him when you found the mummy?” Ben seemed genuinely interested.

“Luke happened to be the first person I met after my discovery. He led me to his place, from where he radioed… the officials. He let me stay the night as it had gotten late, and we talked and became friends of sorts.” Here Ben snorted, and Rey glared at him, but continued. “When the press hounded me for information in the aftermath of the discovery, he offered me a temporary job helping him with surveying the glacier. Most interviewers couldn’t be bothered to hike up here.”

Ben leaned back in his chair, and pressed his lips together, almost as if to keep himself from saying something.

“What?” Rey asked.

“I don’t really want to talk down any rapport you and Luke had developed, but it strikes me as more likely that he kept you here in order to control exactly what was divulged to the press. Luke didn’t do friends when I was here, but he always tried to keep the people who knew his secrets close to him. You were already here, so why not let you help with the work, too?”

His words struck too close to home for Rey’s liking. She quickly lifted a fork full of those – what had he called them? – spaetzle to her mouth, so she wouldn’t be able to answer him, and her eyes fluttered shut in pleasure. “Whoa, that’s really good,” she praised him once it was polite to speak again. “Do they teach that recipe at Sith school?” she couldn’t help but remark when she saw his eyes light up at her words, and it had the desired effect. His brow furrowed once more.

“I’m no Sith,” he was quick to respond.

“Well, I heard differently.”

“Whoever you talked to was wrong.”

“You spent the better part of ten years with them. If it talks like a duck, walks like a duck…” Rey let her voice trail off and shrugged. “It probably  _ is _ a duck.”

“It’s true that I worked with them. Contrary to Luke and Mom, they encouraged my thirst for knowledge and let me do research. But that doesn’t mean I was one of them.”

“Tell yourself that so you can sleep at night, do you?”

Rey wanted very much to glare at Ben, but the fact that she had to suppress a moan every time she put a fork-full of the food he’d prepared into her mouth took the steel out of her expression. It seemed she was still able to convey her disapproval with the rest of her body language, for Ben put his fork down and leaned back and sighed.

“You know, you’re right. I am telling myself I never was a Sith to feel better. Because after all the years of research I did, I finally got to the heart of their philosophy. I’d always sort of closed my eyes, told myself that some of the things that bugged me were just metaphors – how could they not be? But only when it got real personal, when I realized they’d lied to my face and just wanted to use me, did I understand, and then I wanted to get away from them as fast and as far away as possible.”

“And what was this big revelation that made you want to run? I really would love to know what you learned there that was worse than the things you– as a Skywalker –had already known beforehand.”

“I didn’t know a thing, and that was the problem. Luke and Mom, they never told me  _ shit. _ ” He took a breath and almost winced, as if he expected Leia to show up and give him hell for his use of language. “The Sith, on the other hand, almost force-fed me knowledge. They threw books upon books at me, had me do research, and praised me for asking questions. That they never fully answered them didn’t really register until recently.”

Rey stopped chewing, thinking about Luke. He had been very mysterious at first, always expecting her to defer to his knowledge, never explaining anything. Until he caught her reading the texts she had, uhm, borrowed from his room (some skills she learned at Plutt’s turned out to be useful after all). After his initial hissy fit, he came around and told her what was going on. He’d said that he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice, and wasn't risking losing another apprentice.

“What do you mean, they never told you anything? You were helping Luke up here quite a few summers. You must have known why,” she finally said.

“About the glacier? Oh, I know everything about it. I can tell you how thick it was at its prime, how far down it reached, how much ice we lost in the last years. I know exactly how to get the relevant data points. About why it must be a Skywalker to do the measurements?” He lifted his eyes up to hers and stopped shoving his food around on his plate. “I was only told it was our legacy because Vader was a Skywalker and he died up here trying to protect the world from Palpatine. They told me that the Sith are bad, that I must avoid them at all costs, but never why.”

“Now come on, they must have told you more. You must have known about Sheev and Shmi, and how they came to our world,” Rey interjected.

“Yes, as a bedtime story and legend, but not as a fact. I’ve never been allowed to go through the archives and annals. They dangled it like a carrot in front of me to get me to behave – until I was too fed up to care anymore.”

“Behave?” Rey raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, behave.” Ben closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. “I’ve had…let’s say, problems with controlling my temper from an early age. They tried to get me to control myself by dangling what I wanted – knowledge – in front of me.” Ben pressed his lips together as he seemed to think about how to best convey his thoughts.

“The Sith were completely different in that regard. They encouraged me to ask questions and offered me lots of source material to read, so I could ‘make up my own mind’ as they phrased it. They praised me when I asked questions – and believe me, I questioned a lot of things. They told me I would go far with my ‘inquiring and sharp, discerning mind’.” He used his fingers to mimic quotation marks where he apparently repeated something he was told verbatim.

“Quite a different reaction from what I got out of Luke or Mom. And so, for the first time since I’d been a child, I felt like I belonged somewhere. That I wasn’t merely tolerated for the unfortunate event of being born into a certain family. That I wasn’t goaded along with promises of maybe being able to read about the history and legacy of my family, if I behaved.”

He became more and more agitated the longer he was speaking, waving his hands around in what seemed like frustration. 

“But apparently I never behaved  _ enough _ ,” he continued after he took a few calming breaths. “They always withheld the books, which fueled my temper. It proved the voice within me right, the one always telling me they didn’t appreciate me, probably feared my skills.”

“Voice?” Rey asked, putting her fork down and leaning forward. Something about what he said resonated with her. She hadn’t been feeling quite like herself lately. During all the hardships she’d faced in her youth, she’d always had a positive outlook on life; she’d always been able to maintain her humor. But recently, all she could seem to think about was how unfairly life had treated her, what a bad hand she’d been dealt. She didn’t like where her thought processes lead her. All that negativity felt...unnatural, somehow.

Ben waved his hand. “A figure of speech,” he deflected.

“It didn’t feel like a figure of speech.” Their eyes met, and Rey noticed for the first time how beautiful his eyes were; they were like warm, amber colored pools she wanted to drown in. She cleared her throat, and managed to tear her gaze away from them with great difficulty. “So you chose to join the Sith because you thought they would give you what your family didn’t?

“Uhm, no. I didn’t run to them right away, if that's what you’re thinking. They found me after some time, and offered me what I craved the most – access to their archives, to knowledge. They had me research Palpatine’s reign, and the aftermath of his death with ‘fresh eyes’ as Snoke put it.”

“The only one publishing something about that area recently was Kylo Ren, whoever that might be. Wait–” Rey furrowed her eyes.

“That was my pseudonym. No, it was more. It was my name while I was with them.”

Rey sighed. “What you wrote about Palpatine’s reign was not objective. You didn’t even touch on the Fall of the Jedi Order, much less on the Hosnian genocide. All you raved about was the economic upswing, but you left out that only a very narrow group profited from that upswing.”

“I know. But the sources I was allowed to use had me doubting those incidents. I only recently found proof the sources were fake.”

“And that had you come to your senses?”

Ben laughed. No, not laughed – he gave a short, self-deprecating chuckle.

“You mean you want to know what it was that had me feeling  _ betrayed _ ?” he asked, clearly without expecting her to answer. “There was this beautiful girl who seemed interested in me. In  _ me _ , can you believe it?” He gestured vaguely towards himself. 

Rey wasn’t sure why it seemed to surprise him that someone was interested in him. She’d felt attracted to him since the moment she laid eyes on him, despite not exactly liking him. 

“She slowly wormed her way into my daily routine,” he continued, “helped me with research, spent lunch with me, and made it clear that she wanted more. I might not be the best at picking up clues in that regard, but even  _ I _ understood. I wasn’t in love with her, but… like I said, she was very attractive, and–” He took a deep breath, as if he needed to fortify himself before he was able to continue. “Anyway, this guy, Hux, he told me that I’d better not fuck Bazine, because no matter what she told me, she wasn’t on birth control; but rather the opposite. That the only reason she was after me was because Snoke had ordered her to have a baby with me, and soon at that.”

Rey narrowed her eyes. Her thoughts drifted to something Gallius had mentioned in the text she’d been trying to decipher. It was slow going; the old-fashioned, flowery language in combination with the old cursive script made for an exhausting read.

“Of course, Hux didn’t tell me that out of the goodness of his heart. He was jealous. Jealous of the attention Snoke lavished on me, and jealous because Bazine had been his girlfriend before Snoke ordered her to…sleep with me.”

It was plain to Rey that Ben might not have been in love with that girl, but he’d been hurt, that much was clear. He seemed angry. Very angry. Not the ‘I want to smash something against the wall’ kind of anger, but a cold rage that indicated it was better for the wellbeing of any involved to not cross Ben’s path in the future.

“That particular revelation had me digging deeper, and I found some things Snoke hadn’t wanted me to see. Like how they knew the legends about Sheev taking over the body of Palpatine were actually facts, for a start. And also what they hoped was in for them when Sheev returned and was elevated to power again; how they– as his faithful servants –would surely be rewarded with positions of power after his ‘Second Coming’ for their unwavering faith in him. I found references to books they'd withheld from me, and I wanted answers. Answers I was sure I’d find here, in the manuscripts my family had always hidden from me."

He’d completely abandoned any pretense of eating by now, and he let his fork drop onto his plate with a clatter. Rey, on her part, noticed that she had cleared her own plate without being aware of it, which was a damn waste of the delicious dish.

“Exactly what answers do you think you can find here?”

“The answer to the question of how to prevent Sheev from returning ever again. Because if there's one thing the Sith believe, it’s that he’s out there, biding his time, waiting for the opportunity to come back.”

“Do you really think me naïve enough to believe you just like that? Believe you when you tell me that you suddenly changed your mind?”

“No, of course not. I will convince you, though.”

“We’ll see about that,” Rey replied, not ready to acknowledge that his side of the story struck a nerve; that she could easily understand what Ben must have felt growing up with Luke, and why he’d left. She needed to think, and she couldn’t do that in his presence. 

“You could start by helping me move my equipment up to the Valorum wall tomorrow morning,” she added and headed for the stairs. 


	3. Chapter 3

The hidden words of Sheev,  
The Sith archives

_ The kyber at the center of the amulets the Elders wear protects their owners. Kyber is a semi-sentient material. Nobody can choose the kyber crystal in his amulet, rather the kyber chooses the person it wants to protect and serve. _

_ If kyber is stolen after it has chosen, it will find a way to protect its owner even if used against them – as long as the kyber’s allegiance is still with them. Should the personality traits the kyber’s chosen its owner for change, the allegiance of the kyber might shift. _

_ One of the most fascinating qualities of the kyber crystal is its capability to focus energy, which is why kyber was frequently utilized in powering weapons. The destruction these kyber weapons were capable of was so extensive that they were outlawed after the second Kyber War. Violations of this law were punishable by death. _

~~~~~~~~

Ben woke with a gasp, his skin covered with sweat and his hands fisting the sheets, his eyes furiously blinking in an attempt to pierce the darkness. He was used to having nightmares, had suffered from them for as long as he could remember. Over the years, he managed to learn how to get out of them so he wouldn’t wake up a complete mess every night. It helped that most of his dreams were recurrent ones, and he recognized the themes and learned to change things so the outcome was slightly altered. Still terrifying, but much easier to bear.

The dream he’d just woken up from had been different. Never before had his brain conjured up such a scenario. Ben was just about to turn on the light and reach for the journal he always kept nearby when he heard a muffled cry from across the hall.

The girl!

As quickly as he could, Ben sat up, untangling his limbs from the blanket, and reached for the light switch. Harsh light flooded the room, and he shut his eyes against it, wincing, and rubbed a hand over his face. Another whimper reached his ears and compelled him to hurry towards Rey’s room. After a perfunctory knock on her door he did not expect would be answered, he hesitated briefly before he tried the doorknob and entered her room.

Even with the light spearing across the hall from Luke’s room (no,  _ his _ room for the time being) as the only source of illumination, he noted the many books she had and the writing implements that littered the surface of the desk she had crammed between the bed and the window. Rey herself was whimpering again, her head thrashing from side to side. Careful so as not to bump against the desk, he walked to her side.

“Rey, wake up! You’re dreaming,” he called, trying to rouse her from her terror with his voice alone, but in vain. He hesitated briefly, considering how to best touch her without being hit – either unconsciously by her flailing around, or consciously because she deemed the contact inappropriate. He settled on her thankfully covered shoulder, and shook her.

“Rey, wake up!” Louder this time. Rey’s eyes flew open, and with lightning speed, her right arm sped towards him, her hand wrapping around his wrist in a vice-like grip. Ben looked down at her arm, and noticed a tattoo on the inside of her arm. He couldn’t see it clearly in the dim light, but he thought it looked familiar.

“It was just a dream,” Ben said in an attempt to soothe her, unconsciously drawing small circles with his thumb on her shoulder, as Rey started to draw in gulps of air. “It’s over.” He watched her as she slowly relaxed and her breathing calmed down. Concentrating on Rey kept him from examining what touching her skin was doing to him. From where her hand was wrapped around his wrist, electric currents ran along his skin, causing goosebumps in their wake. Never before had the touch of another person caused that kind of reaction, and Ben didn’t allow himself to think about the ramifications of that.

“Why are you here?” she finally asked him.

“I heard that you were in distress, and I wanted to help.”

“Yes, but why? What is it to you that I have nightmares?”

Ben heard the challenging undertones in her question. Apparently, angry Rey was back. He waited for the rage he used to feel when people came at him with such an undertone – but there was nothing. If anything, he felt defensive.

“I have them, too. Frequently. And I know how disconcerting they are, so I wanted to help. But I can go, if you want that,” he sighed and tried to read her expression in the half-dark of the room. “Or you can tell me about your dream. I usually write them down, in a dream journal, so I can try to figure out what they mean.”

“Okay then,” Rey nodded. “Maybe you can help me make sense of that dream. I’ve had it a couple of times now. Nearly every night recently. And every night, a little bit more happens.”

She took a fortifying breath. “I was walking across the glacier towards a big crevasse; it was calling to me, I felt a sense of dread. Funnily enough, the crevasse was round, but that didn’t bother me at all. The moonlight was bright, but it did nothing to show me what was down that crevasse. I stared down into its inky depth, and felt afraid of what was down there, of what was calling me.”

Ben furrowed his brow. The setting seemed all too familiar.

“And then, suddenly, I slipped. Or was pulled, I don’t know. I fell, and before I was even able to scream, I was plunged into a pool of water.” Rey gripped Ben’s wrist even harder and started to shiver. “I…don’t laugh. I can’t swim. I grew up in Jakku, in the middle of the desert. Swimming isn’t a skill that is needed there.”

Ben thought back to his own nightmare, in which he’d been flailing around in a pitch-black mass of water. Even while trapped in that dream, he’d wondered why he wasn’t trying to swim.

“But then I broke the surface, and was able to crawl onto a rocky ledge. Far above me, I could see the moon, and what little light there was reflected off the cave walls. They were smooth and polished and yellow. They reflected not only the light, but bathed everything in the cave in a citrine hue, and I could also see myself in them like in a mirror.”

“But you didn’t only see yourself once, you also saw the reflection of your reflection from the wall behind you. And the reflection of that as well. As if an indefinite number of yourself was staring back at you,” Ben continued.

“How do you know that?” Rey asked, clearly surprised.

“Only moments before I heard you, I woke up from a nightmare myself. From that very nightmare, to be specific.”

“What? How is that possible?” Rey gasped.

“I have no idea. Or rather, I have one, but…go on, tell me the rest of your dream first. I woke up earlier than you.”

“I knew that I was being called to the end of the line. I was sure that there would be some sort of reward where the reflections ended, that I would get answers. I only had to be open for all possibilities, and let the light in. I felt like a puppet on a string as I was pulled closer to the crystal-like wall. Part of me was afraid of what would happen, afraid of what was waiting for me on the other side of the wall; that I would be trapped in darkness forever if I followed along. Another part of me felt sure that nothing bad would happen. That I just had to let it play out.”

Rey looked at him, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. “I was about to give in. I raised my hand, ready to touch the surface – and that was when you woke me up.”

“What was the most frightening thing about the dream for you?” Ben asked her.

“That I would be alone in the dark forever and nobody would miss me or search for me.”

Ben put his free hand over Rey’s hand, which was still clutching his wrist. Rey gasped, and Ben knew that this time she was as jolted by the contact as he was.

“You are not alone, Rey,” he insisted, and hoped that she would believe him.

“Neither are you. It isn’t too late to come home.”

Ben could only hope that Rey included herself in the home she was promising him. He’d never felt such an intense connection with anybody before, neither physically nor spiritually, and he desperately wanted to help and protect her; the latter notion was one he was completely unfamiliar with.

“When you simply retell what happened in the dream, it doesn’t sound so terror-inducing, don’t you agree?” Ben wasn’t sure how to best explain his technique of dealing with his dreams. “Sure there was the part where you couldn’t swim, but apart from that? Try to separate your feelings from what actually happened in your dream. And when you have it the next time, alter certain things.”

“Alter things? Like what?” Rey asked, baffled.

“Stand on a different spot, so that the reflections have to be different. Or don’t stand, sit down.”

“How can I do that? It’s a dream!”

“Yes, but once your dream-self is aware that it is dreaming, it can get some agency back. You just have to try to free yourself from the fears the dream is playing on.” Ben explained. 

Ben looked at Rey’s bewildered face. She clearly could not imagine that this could work in any way.

"I know it sounds bizarre, but I promise it works. I'll help you as much as I can, Rey. But let me make us some tea first. I think we could both use the distraction at the moment."

~~~~~~~~

Rey had to smile at the meticulous way Ben went about brewing tea. He’d tutted (actually tutted!) at the fact that she only kept tea-bags in the pantry and didn’t have any loose leaves, and he let the water rest a couple of seconds so that the water wasn’t boiling when he poured it over the bags. He even set a timer, so the tea wouldn’t steep too long.

Rey knew there was no way she would be able to sleep so soon after that nightmare, knew this from the previous nights when she’d woken up from that dream. In the aftermath of these dreams, Rey always felt jumpy and unsettled; much like she did while growing up. She always had to gauge the mood of her foster father so she wouldn’t say the wrong thing or step the wrong way. She felt incredibly alone, knowing she had nobody to rely on besides herself.

“So you really had the same dream as I did?” she finally asked Ben, when he set the mug of tea in front of her. She pulled the long sleeves of the shirt she’d thrown on after getting out of bed down, so the additional layer would protect her skin when she curled her hands around the mug.

“More or less, yes. I was confused when I woke up, because I’d never dreamed anything like it. I usually have the same recurrent dreams but this one felt…alien to me.”

“But how is it possible for two people to share the same nightmare?”

Ben looked at her for a long time before he started to answer.

“I have a theory, but first...I noticed you always keep your tattoo covered.” Ben held up a hand, palm facing her in the universal gesture of stopping someone, and Rey closed her mouth again. Out of instinct she’d wanted to deny having it. “I only mention it because it plays into my theory. May I see it? I only saw the outline of it in the dimness of your room.”

Rey hated the damn thing. She’d had it since she could remember. It was ugly, a circle with spikes (sixteen of them, she’d counted them often enough) pointing to the middle, encased in a hexagon, with some letters and numbers under it. 

It was the sign of the Sith.

Luke had nearly thrown her out after he noticed it. He caught her in a short-sleeved shirt on her way out of the bathroom only a couple of days after she’d started working with him. Together with Leia, who’d always been the more sympathetic of the siblings, Rey had been able to convince him of the fact that she could not remember anything of her early childhood, and had no recollection of where and when she’d been marked. He’d eyed her suspiciously for a while, though; as if he was afraid some sort of conditioning might kick in now that she was near the place where the subject of the Sith’s worship had supposedly died. It had taken him weeks to act normally around Rey after that, and even longer to actually tell her the secrets the Skywalker family had been guarding for so long.

She knew the tattoo had to be the reason for her parents’ order to always keep her arms covered. They would probably be horrified to know that she was about to show it to someone; a former Sith someone, at that. He had spent the last years with them, but something had shifted between her and Ben. She couldn't pinpoint the exact moment it had happened, but Rey trusted him now; she knew with a clarity that astounded her that he was sincere and would never do something to harm her.

Prying her fingers off the mug and rolling up the sleeve on her right hand took some conscious effort on her part, and once the tattoo was exposed, she felt almost naked. She looked up to Ben almost shyly.

“You know what it means, right?” he asked her.

“It’s the symbol of the Sith. I've carried it for as long as I remember. But how or why, I have no memory of that.”

Something nibbled at Rey’s awareness. Something she’d tried to understand earlier. She briefly closed her eyes and debated the wisdom of what she was contemplating. Trusting Ben with her own secrets was one thing, but trusting him with information Luke and Leia hadn’t shared with him was another thing entirely. Then again, Rey had been thinking about what Ben told her about how his family had tried to get him to comply, and it didn’t sit right with her. And Luke had felt like that too – after it had been too late and Ben had been long gone.

“Actually, just earlier, I was reading a text…I’ve never been able to understand it fully. Luke could only teach me so much in the short time I was here before he died, and Leia is always so busy, so I’m still struggling with deciphering the old texts, but…” 

Quickly, before she could regret it, she sprinted up to her room and grabbed the annals off her desk. She clutched them to her chest while descending the stairs, nervously biting her lips. Ben waited for her in the doorway to the kitchen, his confused expression giving way to excitement as soon as he noticed what she held in her hands.

“Here,” she said as she opened the tome to the page she’d last read, and placed her finger on the paragraph in question. Ben stepped behind her to look over her shoulder. He was close enough for Rey to feel the heat radiating off his body, and for his breath to tickle her ear.

“The entry was written by Gallius. He was –“

“A Skywalker who joined the Sith. Not unlike me.”

“Indeed. And not unlike you, he became disillusioned and came back home. Leia told me to read his entries to understand why Snoke had been so proud about having managed to reel you in.”

Rey felt Ben move in even closer, and heard him voicing the words as he read along. It appeared he was able to read the text fluently rather than translating it word for word the way she had been laboring through. Ben indicated for her to turn the page. Of course she could just have handed him the book, or laid it down on the table, but that would have robbed her of his proximity, and of the opportunity to study his profile while he was engrossed in the text.

“Well?” she asked when he straightened up again and moved away from her.

“So much makes sense now,” he choked out and ran his hands through his hair. He was clearly agitated and started pacing the room, while Rey let herself sink down on the kitchen chair she’d occupied earlier, and placed the book on the table. She itched to prompt him to elaborate, but sensed that he needed some time to work through what he just read first.

“They were running a breeding program. A literal breeding program.”

Rey blinked, her trying to wrap her mind around what Ben just told her. “To what end? To create a superrace?”

“In a way? They wanted to create a perfect vessel to host Sheev on his second coming. They started with the children Sheev had with women he'd abducted and held as his mistresses. But they knew that Palpatine’s body had not been ideal, so they wanted to strengthen the lines with Skywalker blood, to mix in blood that came from wherever Sheev originated from. And they succeeded. Gallius wrote that he hadn’t been the first Skywalker to join the Sith, but he hoped to be the last.”

“Well, in that he didn’t succeed.” Rey nearly went dizzy watching him pace the room. “Do you think you could sit down?” she finally asked him, and Ben stilled. “You are making me nervous.”

“Now I know why Snoke ordered Bazine to sleep with me, why Hux said she might be on the opposite of birth-control,” Ben whispered as he sat down in the chair opposite of Rey. “He was never interested in my mind at all. All they ever wanted from me was  _ my sperm _ .” He spat out the word sperm with disgust. “He was only interested in me because I was a Skywalker, not  _ despite _ it. I’m such a fool!”

Rey took his hand in hers as a gesture of comfort.

“Before I left, I used the clearance I had been granted to visit some Sith educational institutes. I’ve seen how their children grow up. I’ve seen how the Sith acolytes behave as adults – they are like shells. Completely brainwashed, ready to execute every order the Supreme Leader utters. No child of mine will be subjected to  _ that _ if I have anything to say about it,” he choked. “But I’ve heard rumors that once in a while someone would manage to break through their conditioning, though. I was told they lost their most promising child approximately 15 years ago. The girl’s parents managed to flee with her, and the girl has been missing ever since. The one who got away.” Here he chuckled.

Suddenly Rey thought of her parents, and of what little she could remember. How scared they seemed to have been in those memories. Instinctively she pulled back her hand and placed it on the spot on her left forearm, the one they’d warned her to never let anybody see.

“Do you know what happened to the parents?” she asked in a voice she barely recognized as her own.

“They died in a car accident while trying to shake the Sith who eventually found them. Why?” Ben looked up to her, curiously. Then it seemed to dawn on him, and his eyes flickered down to where he knew her tattoo was.

Tears welled in Rey’s eyes. They hadn’t come back because they were dead, not because of something she had done.

“Your tattoo means that you are one of the lucky ones. Your parents were able to break their conditioning and they got you out.” He paused for a moment. “Given your age, you could very well be  _ that _ child, Rey. You… no, your body, is what the Sith thought to be the perfect vessel to hold Sheev.”

In an only half-suppressed flight reflex Rey stood up, pushed her chair back, and then wrapped her arms around her middle.

“No!” she shook her head. “That can’t be. I don’t believe it.”

Ben stood up as well, and walked around the table towards her. He lifted his arms slowly so he wouldn’t spook her, and finally wrapped them around her. Rey let herself sink into his embrace and closed her eyes.

“Deep down you know that it’s true.” Rey stubbornly shook her head. “Why did you want to go hiking here, of all places? Not many hikers come here; most turn around halfway.”

“I don’t know. I just felt compelled to come here, because it’s so different from Jakku.”

“I think you were called. I think some part of you knows that, don't you?” she heard Ben say, and she nodded against his chest.

“Every Sith child gets marked with the sign, and a combination of letters and numbers to identify their birth date. I wondered why, when I learned that at one of the Sith schools. Now I know. It is like a brand to identify the lineage.”

Rey sniffled, completely overwhelmed.

“When I first saw your tattoo, I thought that maybe some brainwashing techniques the Sith used on the young children might have been responsible for the dream. But now…” Ben’s voice trailed off.

“Let’s say Sheev is still around, however he might have accomplished that, and is trying to find the ideal vessel. He has two potential bodies to graft: two Skywalkers.”

Rey furrowed her brow. “What do you mean, two Skywalkers?”

“Okay, not really two Skywalkers. Two people carrying Skywalker blood, which resonates and responds to his call. The dream could be a manifestation of that call.”

Rey looked up at him, mulling over his words.

“I wouldn’t say this makes sense, for how can it, but it feels true.” Rey bit her lip while working through his theory. “Do you have any idea how he could have survived?”

“I don’t think he survived in the literal sense of the word. His host body, Palpatine, had already been on the brink of giving out. But the amulet, or more specifically, the crystal in the amulet, might have found a way to protect him.”

“But why isn’t Vader still around as well, then? He had an amulet, too.”

“He did?” Ben seemed astonished. Rey had forgotten that he hadn’t read Shmi’s letters and Padme’s diary entries.

“Yes. He had Shmi’s amulet. I think he wanted to open the portal to send Sheev back to wherever he’d come from in the first place.”

“Huh, I had no idea,” Ben murmured. “He had Shmi’s amulet, yes, but I doubt the kyber had chosen Vader. It must have still belonged to Shmi.” Ben let his arms sink and started to pace the room once again. Apparently Ben needed movement when he tried to make sense of new information. Rey felt the loss of his arms around her keenly; his embrace had felt like home.

“Why does it make a difference to whom the amulet belonged? Isn’t it enough that Vader had it with him?” 

“I’ve read something Sheev/Palpatine himself wrote about the kyber crystals. The kyber chooses who it wants to protect. Normally that doesn’t change for as long as the owner of the kyber is alive. So, having the amulet in his possession wouldn’t have necessarily meant that Vader had control of it.”

“But he still could have used it. Just like Sheev used Shmi’s and that unknown person’s kyber to open the portal in the first place.”

“A third kyber?” Now it was Ben’s time to be confused.

“Shmi told Padme that she remembered another unconscious body near the place where Sheev had opened the portal. She concluded that he must have used that person’s kyber as well. Assuming that’s true, then Vader’s plan to open the portal would not have worked anyway. Three kyber amulets would have been necessary.”

“Hmmm. That makes sense. If Sheev made the kybers connect with each other, he needed at least three to make a portal he could pass through.” Ben nodded. His eyes held a far-away look. He was clearly deep in thought, working through the information he just got.

“How do you think Sheev’s kyber could have kept him around?” Rey interrupted Ben’s thought process.

“I’m not sure. But when Sheev and Shmi arrived, no strange weather phenomena occurred. So maybe the cold had something to do with it – an attempt at preserving the host body. Or the cold could have just been caused by a reaction between the two crystals, if Vader tried to open the portal with them.” Ben ran his hands through his hair, clearly frustrated. The gesture drew Rey’s attention to his hands, though. They were huge, with big knuckles and long, surprisingly graceful fingers. He could probably span her waist with them, and Rey felt heat warming her cheeks at that thought.

“It would be really interesting to have a look at one of those.” Ben’s musings brought Rey’s thoughts back on track.

“Uhm, actually–“ Rey let her voice trail off. Was it wise to let Ben know about the amulet she’d found near the mummy last year? Luke had made it clear that no one was allowed to know about it. Her mind screamed at her to shut up, but her gut had decided she could trust Ben. She really hoped she could rely on her gut feeling, but then again, it had never been wrong in the past.

“What?” 

Rey reached up and tugged on the string she wore around her neck, slowly pulling up the ancient pendant tied to it from under her shirt. Ben had become completely still, his eyes following her every move, as she slipped the string over her neck, and held her hand out to him.

“I found it not far from where I discovered the Ice-Man. I took it, showed it to Luke, and he was quite adamant that nobody apart from us was to know about its existence.”

Slowly, ever so slowly, Ben stepped closer, staring at the amulet nestled in the palm of her right hand. Rey remembered the moment she’d laid eyes on it for the first time. She’d been enchanted by its fragile beauty. Like the wings of a butterfly, strands of a metal unlike anything Rey had ever seen flanked a cracked blue crystal. She’d been afraid to close her fist around it at first, but she soon found out the metal, thin as it might be, was quite hard. It must be; it was a small wonder that the ice hadn’t destroyed it, or even bent it out of shape.

Ben lifted his hand as if to touch it, but let it hover over the pendant. His eyes were wide, and he had his head cocked to the side as if listening to something.

“You had it on you this entire time?” he finally asked her, wonder evident in his voice.

“Yes.” Rey nodded. “Why?”

“When I met you, something happened. I’ve been angry for as long as I can remember. The anger felt… not like my own most of the time. It was as if… something… was amplifying and twisting all my feelings. But when I met you, calmness washed over me, and the anger was gone.” He clearly had difficulty tearing his eyes away from the amulet to look up at her. “I thought something about you caused the lack of anger. That maybe your feelings cancelled out mine somehow. I know that makes no sense – but nothing regarding Sheev adheres to the usual laws of science.” He inhaled deeply. “But now I wonder. What if it was the amulet?”

“Well, I can’t say that it makes  _ me _ feel calm. I’ve been feeling more aggressive ever since I arrived and started living up here.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed,” Ben remarked dryly, and Rey smacked him on the arm with her free hand.

“Why don’t you take it? You wanted to examine it, if I recall.”

“Are you sure?”

His hesitation made Rey feel sure that her gut feeling had been right. There was nothing greedy in Ben’s manner, as he gently touched the amulet with his finger, but he still didn’t take it. Rey looked at him, and noticed that he had gone rigid. He wasn’t even drawing in breath anymore.

“Ben?” He neither responded nor indicated that he heard her. “Ben, is everything all right?”

That was when she noticed it – a faint hum. No not a hum, more like the sound of chimes. It grew stronger as the amulet started to vibrate in her palm.

“Ben? What’s going on?” Her free hand clasped his bicep and shook it until he relaxed and started to breathe again, and his eyes grew focused once more.

“That…I…” His fingers finally closed around the amulet.

Somehow, Rey knew with absolute clarity that the kyber had just chosen Ben as its new owner, and bile started to rise in her throat. She let her hands drop and balled them to fists, her nails biting into the flesh of her palm. Why? She’d found the amulet, made sure nobody knew about its existence, and yet the moment Ben touched it, it bonded with him? Why was he more special than she was?

Only when Ben’s hands framed her face and tilted her head up so she was forced to look at him did she notice that she’d started to hyperventilate.

“Rey, I know what thoughts are running through your head right now, but believe me, they are not your own thoughts.”

“Yeah sure. Now you can suddenly read minds?” Rey hissed, and tried to pry his hands away from her face, but he didn’t let go. She changed tactics, and aimed a jab towards his solar plexus. It had the intended result, he let go of her face, but immediately spun her around, and held her from behind, his arms pinning hers to her side.

“Listen to me, Rey.” Ben implored with his lips against her ear.. “You know as good as I do that it is nobody’s fault that the amulet hadn’t chosen you. That  _ doesn’t _ mean that you’re not worthy. It just means that, for whatever reason, it resonates with something in me. Maybe with my own flawed soul, seeing as the kyber is cracked and flawed itself.” 

Rey tried to shake him off, but when she couldn’t, a strangled sob escaped her and tears welled in her eyes. She tried to kick back, but his legs were spread in a way that she couldn’t reach them. He held her in place like this for what felt like an eternity, until the fight went out of her, and her angry sobs subsided. When Rey finally slumped, his hold on her relaxed and turned more into an embrace, his thumbs rubbing soothing circles against her side. After a while, she let her head sink back to lean against his face, and his fingers grew bolder, brushing against the underside of her breasts, causing lust to pool at her core and her knees to buckle. Good thing he was holding her up.

The overwhelming events of the day and night had finally caught up with her, and Rey couldn't suppress a big yawn. Ben chuckled as he swept her up in his arms and moved to carry her upstairs.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered against his neck.

“You have nothing to be sorry for. If something like that had happened between Luke and me, I would have exploded as well. With far more collateral damage.”

“Still, this isn’t me. This isn't how I used to be.”

Ben gently positioned her on her bed, and when he straightened up, Rey let her hand wrap around his wrist.

“Can you stay? Protect me from another nightmare?”

Ben hesitated for only a moment before climbing into her bed and arranging her so that her head was pillowed on his shoulder, and then his arms wrapped around her, holding her close. Never in all her life had she felt safer than she did right at that moment in his arms.

“Tomorrow I’ll have to start my measurements at the Valorum wall,” she whispered. “And I’m afraid. I’ve postponed going there, because something has been calling me there, and it made my skin itch.”

He lightly caressed her hair, and she finally relaxed.

“I’ll come with you.” Rey heard his answer just as she was drifting off.


	4. Chapter 4

‘Who the hell designed hiking pants that hug a woman's rear so enticingly?’ Ben couldn’t help but think as he followed Rey over the rubble which had been covered by a thick layer of ice until just a few years before. Rey had taken the lead, as she was in better physical shape for climbing and knew the safest route.

Ben could hardly tear his eyes away from her shapely backside. ‘Don’t those designers realize that pants cut that way could lead to deadly accidents?’ Ben needed to focus on placing his steps, but that was hard with Rey only a few steps ahead of him.

What the hell was wrong with him? He’d never let a woman’s charms distract him before, but with Rey everything seemed to be different. A couple of hours ago he’d been chosen by a kyber – Shmi’s kyber to be precise, something he still couldn’t wrap his mind around. Maybe his mind was trying to distract him from all the ramifications of that by steering his thoughts in a completely different direction.

Or maybe it was just that he was really attracted to Rey.

Ben sighed, and discreetly adjusted his pants as Rey called for a break to check their harnesses, strap the crampons onto their boots, and pull the ice picks from their backpacks. They were about to step on the edge of the glacier, and Ben had hardly paid attention to their surroundings on their way up. He really was turning into a male cliché here. The memories of how good it had felt to simply hold her while she had been sleeping didn’t help, either.

Rey grunted when she shouldered her backpack again.

“You know, we could redistribute the weight,” Ben offered.

“No, you’re already carrying enough. By coming with me and transporting some of the equipment you’re saving me a whole day anyway.” 

“You’re not helping anyone by tiring yourself out,” Ben tried to convince her one last time. “At least strap the tripod onto my bag.”

She shot him a withering look, clearly intent on making sure he understood that she was more than capable, and Ben made sure to meet her glare. In the end, Rey sighed, pulled off her gloves again and did as he asked.

“I know that you  _ can _ carry all of that on your own. It just isn’t necessary with me here,” Ben said, briefly touching her hand with his when she passed him. The contact sent a jolt up his arm, and Rey’s eyes flew up to his. So it wasn’t just him, she felt it too.

“It’s getting stronger,” she whispered, fear evident in her voice. “I’m trying to resist it, but the pull is getting stronger.”

“Did you feel something similar when you found the mummy or the kyber last year?” Ben asked, and Rey shook her head.

“No. I mean, I hadn’t planned on taking that route down, but I changed my mind along the way. Maybe a suggestion was planted, but that was nothing compared to what I’ve been feeling the last few weeks, or now.”

“Where is it drawing you?”

“Basically towards where I found the Ice-Man.”

“What about leaving the surveying equipment down here, and just following the pull today?” Ben suggested.

“I wanted to start working –“

“Do you really think you could? Without getting distracted?”

Rey bit her lip, as she considered his words. “You’re right. The measurements would probably be unusable. I really don’t think I could concentrate on work right now. We can start measuring from this end tomorrow, after I’ve been up there.” She jerked her head in the general direction they were headed.

Ben gave her hand a reassuring squeeze before he slid the backpack off his shoulders again. They stored the heavy equipment behind a rock and covered it, then repacked the things they needed to take with them. For a moment Ben’s hand hovered over the sleeping bag and bivouac, but in the end he decided to pack them again. There are things that are simply not left behind when hiking in such an inhospitable environment.

Now that their bags were lighter, they were able to make headway much quicker. Rey increased her speed constantly, and Ben, still feeling yesterday’s ascent in his legs, soon started panting. He tugged on the safety rope to indicate that something was wrong, and Rey spun around, face flushed.

“What?” she snapped, and Ben only lifted an eyebrow and looked at her.

“Sorry,” she answered, and hung her head. 

Ben stepped towards her, and placed his hands on her shoulders. “No problem. Just, don’t forget the safety rules. It won’t do us any good if we had an accident.”

“It’s better when you touch me,” she whispered. “Do you think –“

“If you promise to stop running from me, I could try to keep my hand on your shoulder if you like,” Ben suggested, and warmth flooded him at Rey’s relieved smile. Someone smiling because something he did or said was still a novelty to him.

They ambled over the glacier this way, Ben touching Rey whenever safety allowed it. He kept his eyes trained on the ice, trying to gauge its condition, for now it was Rey who had become too distracted to pay attention to the dangers of walking on a glacier. More than once, he had to steer them clear of a small crevasse Rey had simply not noticed in her agitated state.

Ben’s discomfort soared. He couldn’t tell if it was from what he suspected they would find, or from watching Rey falling more and more into a trance-like state. Her movements were determined, solely focused on climbing up as directly as possible, and she barely responded to his remarks anymore.

“Rey, whatever happens, don’t accept anything you are being offered.”

Ben stopped and pulled on her hand to make her look towards him. She did, but achingly slow, almost sluggish, her body still turned in the direction she wanted to go.

“Huh?”

“Whatever he offers you, don’t accept.”

She blinked and nodded, her head already turning away from him again. Following the trajectory of her movement with his eyes Ben suddenly saw it: a dark mass contrasting against the whiteness of the glacier, a couple of steps ahead of them next to a boulder. It could be anything, but Ben was sure they found what they’d been searching for. Rey tried to extricate her hand from his, but he didn’t let go.

“No. You said it keeps you grounded. I won’t let go.”

“I have to…hurry. I–,” Rey’s voice faltered, and she started to pull Ben along with her.

Ben’s apprehension grew. In contrast to Rey, who was pulled towards the place, he was repelled. Maybe it was the kyber around his neck trying to warn him, maybe whatever lay ahead could sense that he was protected and thereby useless in regards to their plans, but he could barely force his legs to stumble after Rey.

Finally, she came to a halt in front of the dark mass. Just as he’d expected, it was a mummified corpse, the skin dark and leathery, the outlines of the bones underneath visible. He– Ben was sure that he was looking at the remains of Palpatine here –lay on his side, his hands and arms folded up to his breast, the gnarled fingers curled, much like the evil witches of fairy tales were depicted when they were casting a curse. The head, bald and skull-like, looked mangled, and somehow Ben knew that the ice was not to blame for that; he must have looked terrifying while still alive.

Ben couldn’t tell if he’d been wearing anything when he ‘died’, but a metal chain he still had around his neck connected to something still encased in the ice.

Rey pulled her hand from his, and crouched in front of the mummy, her fingers clawing almost frantically at the point where the chain met the ice. Quickly, Ben took a step closer to her and laid his hand on her shoulder.

“Use the ice pick,” he suggested, and Rey jerkily nodded, already reaching toward the tool. She started scratching the ice away, and it soon became clear that what had just been a dark shadow under the icy surface was actually an egg-shaped metal pendant.

If the kyber currently nestled against his breast hadn’t made clear who it had belonged to before, looking at the crude pendant Rey was currently digging out of the ice couldn’t have made it clearer. The delicate housing of  _ his _ kyber was beautiful and feminine, while the one Rey closed her hand around was pretentious and hideous – and exactly what Ben would expect Sheev to wear. He’d read some of the texts that had supposedly been penned by the man himself, after all.

As soon as Rey freed it from the ice and the chain was no longer taut, Ben tried to lift it over the mummy’s head. Doing so without actually touching the corpse was impossible, and even though he still had his gloves on, he shuddered at the contact. It felt as if evil was seeping through the layer of cloth.

A low rumble made Ben look up to the sky. When they’d set out earlier that morning, it had promised to be a glorious day, perfect for their endeavor. But now, dark clouds had gathered over and around them. A thunderstorm was imminent, judging from the electricity cackling in the air.

“Rey, we need to go!” Ben shouted and turned towards Rey, but she was lost in her own world. She was rubbing the metal with her gloves, freeing it from the remnants of ice with an almost feral look in her face. She held the amulet in her left hand as she lifted her right one to her mouth and took her glove off with her teeth. Ben stepped closer and saw a yellow spot inside the metal: the kyber crystal. This kyber was yellow, the same color as the crystalline walls in the dream he’d shared with Rey.

“Don’t!” He shouted, but it was already too late. Rey’s finger made contact – and winds started to howl, swirling around them, tearing at their clothes. Lightning flashed, the only illumination in the sudden darkness. Rey stood at the center of it, completely oblivious to what was going on. She looked paralyzed, rigid like a statue; her eyes wide open, but unseeing.

Remembering that she’d said his touch helped, he stepped closer and reached for her – but before he could make contact, he felt himself being flung backwards by the quall. He lost his footing and landed on his back. Instinctively he tried to reach for something to hold onto, but without the pick his gloved fingers couldn’t dig into the ice.

His eyes were still trained on Rey when the wind slammed him against the rock next to the mummy. Pain shot through him, and then everything went dark.

~~~~~~~~

Rey blinked. She stood in the cave – the one from her dreams, but the light was different. In her dreams moonlight had been reflected by the walls and had bathed everything in yellow light. But now there was no moonlight, only flashes of lightning. Rey turned, and became aware of another presence. She couldn’t see anyone, but she could feel it pressing at her from every direction. She took a step towards the wall, and slowly lifted her hand– her ungloved hand –to touch it. Another flash illuminated the darkness, and she briefly saw her reflection. Or was it her reflection? It must be, and yet it wasn’t her. Not entirely. She’d never looked like this. Never had had such a cold look in her eyes, never such a cruel set to her jaw.

‘Or had she?’ Rey wondered, thinking about the anger that had been simmering within her for the past year.

“Long have I waited,” her reflection greeted her, causing her skin to pimple, and she clenched her hand into a fist, and let it sink to her side again. “Finally, you have found your way to me, to the only one who can understand you. The only one who can help you become who you were always supposed to be.

Rey puzzled over those words. Who was she supposed to be? She was…no, not happy – but content. She had freed herself from Plutt’s hold on her, and become more than anyone could expect from someone raised under the circumstance she’d been raised. When growing up in Jakku, especially in the care of someone like Plutt, getting away and breaking the cycle of abuse was a rare occurrence.

“Ah, but you are supposed to lead. It’s in your blood, my dear. Our blood.”

Images of Rey clad in finery, drawing gestures of deference from shadowy figures around her danced over the reflective walls.

“I’m never going to lead the Sith,” Rey said aloud. “I want nothing more than to end them. They are corrupt, and a danger to our civilization.”

“You are right. They are a danger. They need to be destroyed – and together we can accomplish that. With my knowledge and your passion combined, that can be achieved. You know that to be true!”

Rey longed to eradicate the Sith. They wanted to be the ruling caste, and as such be the masters of everyone else. For centuries, they had tried to undermine the Republic by spreading misinformation and placing their puppets in strategic positions, from where they could fuel latent conflicts present in the multi-cultural society of Galactica. The poverty and crime-rate in Jakku had been one of the results of the Sith’s machinations.

“If you agree, we’d have access to all their secrets, and could expose them all. Each and every one of them. And then we can start building a better society. With us at the helm of it. Just think of all the good we could do.”

Her reflection raised her hand and held it out to her. She stared at it, but shook her head.

“My parents gave their lives to protect me from you.”

“They were foolish. Think about what their actions have cost you. Always hungry, never safe, nobody to rely on besides yourself. But no more! You don’t have to be alone anymore! We would always be together; I’m never going to disappoint you.”

Oh, how Rey wanted that. She was so tired of being alone. Sure, she had friends. Her thoughts wandered to all the people that had come into her life since she left Jakku. Finn, the first person to talk to and smile at her; Rose, who always brought her muffins and brightened her day with her chatter. Chewie, the silent giant with whom she worked at the garage when she wasn’t up here taking measurements; and of course Leia and Han, who gave her work and accepted her into their fold. But now that Ben was back, they surely wouldn’t want her around anymore, or would they?

“Join me. I’d never replace you with someone else. You are far too special for that.”

Slowly Rey lifted her hand towards where the other Rey offered hers, when a blue hue suddenly infused the crystalline wall, and Rey heard the echo of a deep voice, telling her that she was not alone. Memories of warm brown eyes looking at her, of a warm embrace and whispered words against her hair rose up. “Don’t accept anything he offers you,” she remembered Ben telling her. When did he say that? Just a few minutes ago, or was it eons?

Rey stepped back from the wall, and shook her head. “I know what you are. You are nothing but a leech who doesn’t care about anybody but yourself. You’re not going to get my body, I won’t allow it. Even if I have to die, you won’t get it. I don’t want anybody having to suffer because of you!”

A deep droning sound swelled all around her, reminding her of the voices of the desert she loved to listen to as a kid, despite everyone telling her it were the voices of evil sand spirits. The walls of the cave started to glow in a yellow hue from within, not just reflecting the lightning flashes anymore. Rey felt tired, oh so tired, and she sank down to the floor, shivering from exhaustion and the cold. The ground was surprisingly warm and soft. In fact, lying on the floor of the cave felt a lot like lying in Ben’s arms, and with a sigh, she closed her eyes, and allowed herself to drift off.

~~~~~~~~

The first thing Rey became aware of when she awoke was the faint beeping of a machine. Then she noticed an uncomfortable, pricking sensation when she tried to move her left arm. Upon opening her eyes, she was met with the dimness of a foreign room. She turned her head, and had to smile. Ben had folded himself onto a tiny chair next to her bed, and by the looks of it, he’d dozed off. His head had rolled to the side, his chin nearly resting on his shoulder.

As her eyes adjusted to the light, she could make out a bandage covering the right side of his face, and several bruises. Rey frowned; he looked as if he belonged in a hospital bed, too.

What had happened? The last thing Rey could remember was leaving the surveying equipment at the edge of the glacier, so they could go and search for whatever had been calling her these past few weeks. After that? Nothing.

She felt a foreign weight around her neck, and carefully touched her chest to find out what it was. Her fingers closed around an egg-shaped object, and she lifted it up to examine it. She had no idea what it was, but as soon as her thumb rubbed over a part of the object that felt different, not like metal as the rest of it, some memories rose. Pictures of the dream cave, but without the feeling of dread that always was present in her dreams. Had she found what had been calling to her? Was she still herself? Or was Sheev part of her now? Would he be taking over a little bit more each day, until nothing of her was left?

Tears started to roll down her cheeks, when someone walked into the room. Rey stiffened, and pretended to be asleep – old habits die hard. She always had to be vigilant while growing up; pretending to be asleep to give whomever ventured by her a false sense of security but being ready to pounce when needed. It was second nature to her.

Rey peeked through her lashes, and relaxed. A familiar form stood at the foot of her bed.

“Leia?” she whispered.

Leia tiptoed around to her side, careful not to wake Ben. She sat down on the bed and took Rey’s hand in hers. In the dim light she could only see Leia’s outline, but she could very much imagine the concern in her eyes.

“How are you feeling, my dear?”

“I’m fine,” she said immediately. Another habit she hadn’t been able to shed: never admit how you really feel. “I don’t remember much. What…how did I get here?”

“After you radioed me, and I talked to Ben, however short that conversation was, Han, Chewie and I decided to come to you,” Leia whispered. “When we arrived, we found your log stating where you’d planned to work, but we also noticed that something was brewing with the weather up there. We were worried sick. I wanted to contact the mountain rescue service immediately, but Han and Chewie convinced me that we should try to find you first.”

“And, did you?”

“By the time we reached the Valorum wall, the weather was perfectly fine again. We found your gear, and pressed on upwards. And then –,”

“Then?”

“Ben stumbled towards us, carrying you in his arms, wrapped tightly in a sleeping bag to keep you warm. He was bleeding heavily from a head wound and was clearly exhausted. Getting him to leave your side to clean and stitch up his wounds took some serious convincing.”

Rey looked over to Ben, who was still fast asleep in this surely uncomfortable position, and warmth bloomed in her chest. Was it really only a day since she’d met him?

“He seemed so changed.”

“Did he tell you what happened? That Shmi’s kyber chose him, and blocked out Sheev’s voice?”

“No, not a word!”

“The anger he carried all those years, that wasn’t Ben. That was Sheev. As was my own anger.”

“And Luke’s, and mine too,” Leia continued. “We all were affected. But Ben the most.”

“You knew?”

“We had suspicions. And Luke was quite determined that Ben had been tainted irrevocably, because he had been so young and unable to block Sheev out.”

“You should have told Ben everything from the start. You lost him because you kept too many secrets from him.”

“I know that now. But it had been the way we were taught, and we thought it was the only way.”

“There’s never just the one way,” Rey said, agitated. “I don’t know what happened.” Leia patted her hand to calm her.

“Am I still me?” Rey finally dared to voice her worries after they’d sat in companionable silence for a couple of minutes.

“Yes, definitely,” Ben answered instead of Leia, his voice rough from sleep. Rey let her head roll to the side, so she could look over to him. Leia stood up and took a step towards him, her hand hovering over his shoulder, as if she were unsure she was allowed to touch him. Ben decided for her by placing his hand over hers.

“I’m sorry, son,” she whispered.

“I know.”

“Will I see you in the morning?” Ben nodded. “Then I’ll leave you now. I’m sure the two of you have got a lot to talk about.” Leia lowered her head to press a short kiss onto Ben’s head, then turned to do the same to Rey. “I’ll swing by in the morning. Sleep well.”

Ben groaned as he stood up so he could take Leia’s place at the bed.

“You’re too tall for that tiny chair. I’m astonished it hasn’t given out under you,” Rey teased him.

“You’d better share your bed with me, if you’re so worried.”

“I’m only worried for the chair.”

“I’m sure of that.” Rey could hear the smile in his voice.

“How’s your head?” she asked him, thinking of the bandages on his face, and reached up to cradle the uninjured side of his face.

“It’s ok. Nothing a little sleep won’t cure. And the scars will make me look more interesting.”

“What happened? I seem to ask that a lot today.”

“After we found Palpatine –,”

“We found Palpatine?” Rey sat up excitedly.

“Mmhmm. And you dug out the crystal amulet…” Rey’s fingers flew back to her chest and tightened around the pendant. “…we were suddenly in the midst of a huge storm, with you at the eye of it. I, apparently, was not needed and was immediately discarded. A strong gust of wind threw me against the nearest rock, and I blacked out.”

“If you blacked out, how would you know –“

“I eventually woke up again, and crawled back to you. You were still standing at the same spot, and the crystal was vibrating in your hand. I remembered that you told me that it helped when we touched, so I took you in my arms, and told you not to give in. Not long after that, the crystal emitted a burst of energy, and you sunk to the ground, unconscious. And just like that, it was over.”

“But how do we know I’m still me? We have no idea how this works. Maybe the change is gradual, and he’ll take over a little bit more with each passing day. Maybe –“

“Shhh. I felt it when the crystal switched its allegiance. It was fed up with Sheev, but protected him because it couldn’t find another worthy mind – until you. It tested you, and you passed. Sheev is gone.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure, Rey. You’re still you.”

Slowly Rey lifted the arm currently not attached to a drip and caressed his face again, letting her fingers ghost over his skin. She felt the stubble on his cheek, and she felt the corner of his mouth curl up in a smile, and suddenly it was enough, yet not nearly enough. He’d saved her, she knew that much. If he hadn’t grounded her, she would have given in. She surged forward, and pressed her lips to his. If he didn’t reciprocate, she would call it a kiss of gratitude and wave it off, but thankfully after just a brief moment Ben growled and carefully wrapped his arms around her to pull her closer. His lips moved under hers, he tilted his head just so, and deepened the kiss. After a few sweeps of his tongue, her hand fell to his shoulder, and all she could do was hang on for dear life. When he drew back, she actually whimpered and tried to chase his lips to recapture them.

“Easy there, tiger. We’re in a hospital, and you’re exhausted.”

“And your face hurts.”

Ben laughed. “Yeah, that too. But I’m more concerned about you. You should sleep some more.”

Rey nodded and lay back again, pulling Ben down with her.

“Only if you stay with me. I learned last night that I sleep better when you’re close.”

“Are you sure? You don’t know me. Heck, I barely know  _ myself _ .”

“I know enough. The rest we can find out together.” Rey scooted sideways to make room for Ben to lay down beside her. After a moment of hesitation, Ben lowered himself, and Rey felt herself being carefully shifted, until she was lying on her right side, pulled closer by his strong arm until her head was pillowed on his chest.

And just like that, for the first time in her life, Rey felt like she’d finally found home.


End file.
